Friday, July 29, 2011

I say week 7 for me, but the first week I didn't complete anything. I also didn't complete anything last week.With my wedding tomorrow evening I wouldn't have completed anything this week, except for the fact that we are having company over all throughout the day tomorrow.One of my projects was to clean off Steve's desk. Let's bear this in mind. We had a drawer in the hallway with nothing in it yet. That drawer now has all those misc. papers in it that you see in the before photo. In other words, those papers still need to be looked through and organized in some way.

This is related to this week's topic over at orgjunkie, which is organizing school papers.Before:

After: (ignore my sandals still on the floor LOL)

Now if I could just get my own desk done. I still have a couple other organizing projects I set up for myself after I see the challenge. Click the button below to go to orgjunkies blog and see what others have been organizing and de-cluttering this past week.

I decided to change the title...maybe more will realize this is a linky post each week and come and share with us?

I told last week about my wedding, so this week I will add more on that. There have been some developments....mostly my oldest daughter bought me a beautiful wedding gown at a yard sale for just $30. It's a dream dress so the wedding got stepped up a bit.

We are now going to be using the candleabras at church as well as buying 2 dozen roses for the altar. The roses are on sale for $10 for 2 dozen so you sure can't beat that!

I also went and bought myself just a basic veil for $6. We still have to buy Steve's wedding band good batteries for my camera, and hopefully a guestbook.

We fancied up the reception area a bit more too. That didn't cost anymore money, but may cost if I have to have the tableclothes we are borrowing from church pressed.

I am planning on doing a whole Wedding on the Cheap post at some point. However, no matter how you stack it, a wedding is not cheap. At least not if you are struggling to even buy groceries like we are.

Moving on, here are a few more items from the 99 Cent Solutions book. I'm still sharing about baking soda.
1. Make a stovetop sparkle. Cooked on food stains are hard to remove. Dampen the stains and then sprinkle on some baking soda. Scrub with a sponge and the stains will lift right off. Far faster, more effective and more environmentally friendly. This also works well on the greasy dirty black build up on the edges of other kitchen appliances.

2. Salvage a burned pot. Scrape out as much food as you can and then fill the pan a quarter full with water. Pour in 1/2 cup of baking soda and bring the pot to a boil. Turn it off and let it sit overnight. In the morning you can clean off the black stuff with ease.

3. Keep garbage cans fresh. Sprinkle a dollop of baking soda in the can before putting in the new liner. When you take the trash out, dump any dry soda still left in there and add more before the new bag. You've got a natural deodorizer right where you need it most.

Thursday, July 28, 2011

I've been given the opportunity to have a 30 day membership to fotolia.com. I am having so much fun with it. I've been searching for photos to use here on my blog, in my squidoo lenses, and in my gather posts. I'm searching for words such as sewing, quilting, crocheting, and different colors.Here are just a few of the great photos I've gotten for future use:

Here is the news about fotolia:

Fotolia offers the largest image bank of free and most affordable royalty free photos and illustrations perfect for any medium, web or print.

So far, there are 13,716,167 images, vectors and HD videos available at Fotolia.

All images offered on Fotolia are Royalty free, they can be used for all kinds of professional documents with no limit on time or copies:

Creation of advertising media

Creation of professional documents

Illustration of press articles

Illustration of websites, blogs, newsletters, web banners...

Illustration multimedia documents

Illustration / Decorations on TV shows or movies

Creation of derivative products (Extended license)

8 reasons for fotolia microstock:

1. Time Savings
Fotolia services will save you time, as you are much more likely to find what you need quickly. A savings in time translates into saving money.2. Clear Licensing Agreement
One hazard of being a designer is learning about copyright laws, restrictions and licenses. On the free photo sites, you have to read the fine print for each and every photo you use. Some photographs come with no restrictions, some are only for non-commercial use and some require the name of the photographer. You don’t have to deal with this headache on Fotolia. The licensing agreement will be the same for all photos in the license category you select, which is typically a standard royalty-free license.3. Availability of Vector Art and Illustrations
Fotolia offers a wide variety of vector art and illustrations. Illustrated graphics can give a course a completely unique look and feel. Vector art refers to graphics that are hand drawn in a tool like Adobe Illustrator. Because they exist as mathematical renderings, they can be expanded to any size and manipulated in a vector graphics program.4. Compelling Images
You can find photos based on a concept, emotion or theme. You can find people doing interesting things and simple single objects that are ready to use.5. Guaranteed Model Releases
You need the signed release of a model to use his or her photo. Model releases are guaranteed with a paid service. This is not true on a free site. That’s why I never use photographs of a person from a free service.6. More Efficient Search
There’s nothing like typing in the search term ‘money’ and getting back photos of the Eiffel tower. This kind of poor search functionality is common on some free photo sites. On the other hand, efficient search functionality is one of the foundations of Fotolia. Fotolia has staff to tag their photos with keywords, so the results are usually more accurate. The keywords are also translated in many languages.7. Supports The Arts
The world would only be shades of gray without the Arts. By paying for images, you’re helping photographers and illustrators earn a living. We need them.8. Reduces Stress
When you can quickly find the graphics you like and need, it reduces your level of stress. And we all need that.

About Fotolia:
Similar to the music or film industry, we believe that every artist's (photographers and designers) image is a work of the soul and protected by intellectual property rights.
Fotolia is convinced that the principle reason for illegal pirated use of protected images is mainly due to the high price barrier created by other agencies.
Fotolia provides a compromise between photographers and buyers, by protecting a photographer's intellectual property rights and offering high commissions, while legally lowering the price barrier so that everyone may enjoy/afford these beautiful images.
In addition, Fotolia challenges the traditional closed agency model by offering the opportunity to monetize their talents to everyone, hobbyist or professional, whatever their fame, status, or size of portfolio may be.
Thanks to a collaborative online model, Fotolia is able to offer individuals and professionals (advertising agencies, press, small business, graphic artists, designers) the greatest image collection in the world for free or as little as $0.75.

How it works:
Fotolia is the first worldwide social marketplace for royalty free stock images, allowing individuals and professionals to legally buy and share stock images and illustrations.
Fotolia offers the largest image bank of free and affordable royalty free photos and illustrations perfect for any medium, web or print.
Photographers and designers constantly update Fotolia with thousands of new photos and illustrations each day, while photographers and designers receive commission from each photo sold and revenue from advertising on the free section.

CREDIT SYSTEM
Credits are Fotolia's form of currency. Credits are used to buy images on the website. (Credit from $0.75)
Image prices are given in credits; the price depends on the size and use of the purchased image. Image prices are from:

SUBSCRIPTION SYSTEM
Fotolia subscriptions allow you to download between 25 and 250 images a day during the period of your subscription.
Images downloaded using the subscription system are equal to the L size (4MP). The subscriptions are offered from:

Are you interested in giving Fotolia.com a try free?? If so, just leave a comment below (just one comment please) and make sure I have a way to get ahold of you if you are chosen.I will take comments until August 10, 2011 at 9 pm CST.Three (3) lucky readers will get codes for a trial subscription!!

Good Thursday to all! I hope you've had a good squidoo week. I've been in and out as usual.
I only got one lens updated this week. My daughter sent me a youtube video of her boyfriends son giving instructions on making some Lego Linkies. So, I added it to my Legos lens. I know at least Ruthi has already seen it.

Have you all joined the Spotted Squids group on facebook? I'm glad that Ruthi invited me in to the group and let me know about it. It's a great place to post links to your lenses and get more exposure, get help you need, and make new friends.

I'm going to call this good for this week's post. Never know, one of these weeks I might surprise you and just get loads done in squidoo!

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Alrighty...my major work in progress is my wedding, of course. Three more days!

I did finish my fabric bag order and the order for the washcloths and got both out in the mail.I worked just a bit more on the jelly roll that I am doing. I don't know what the size will end up being...I'm sure just a lap quilt, or toddler bed size maybe. I wanted to sew more on it, but knew it had to be put away. In the photo it's folded over and laying over the top of my sewing machine.

I am also still working on taking out the binding on this patchwork quilt to re do it. It wouldn't be so hard if #1 I hadn't used the smallest stitch on my machine to put it on, and #2 there weren't so many places where I missed catching the front or the back of the binding so sewed again, and sometimes again.

I'm very doubtful that I will have anything to report next week at all, except maybe working on that binding. The wedding is Saturday. Today we are setting up a bunch of things at the church. Tomorrow I have to go out of town. After the wedding we are going on a trip for a few days. I"m debating on whether any crafts are going with me or not. I'm rather thinking we should just relax, hike the nature trail, swim etc....not bring too much from home with us (other than our laptops LOL)I am linking up with these three blogs:

Monday, July 25, 2011

Rec'd a few pretty cool freebies this last week.Magazines: Ok!, 2 issues of Time, Sports Illustrated, Entertainment Weekly, and People.A few pieces of hausernet mailCan of Alpo and $1 couponOffice Max couponsBambi collectible lunchbox from Disney RewardsFree coupon for Ritz, Wheat Thins or Triscuit from mycokerewardsIpad looking clock/calendar/alarm also from mycokerewards(our cat Molly in the photo is just a bonus LOL)Email was pretty good this week too with a $10 paypal payout from Superpoints and $25 paypal from sidetick.

6 & 6 in 2018 with Pomegranate and Chintz

Online Craft Mall

Buy Handmade or Sell Your Own!

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